Chapter 20

The grim hallway led to another set of doors with a guardhouse. These doors were blown out as well and the guard house, apparently made of mudbrick, had collapsed. The walkway outside of the building was paved with large, flat stones fitted tightly together. Borner looked up at the dark sky and was startled that the walls were so high. Stretching to glimpse the top edge, he understood what it felt like to stand in a livestock chute: there was only one way to go. The torches in their wall brackets cast eerie shadows upon the walls that had long, dark smears about chest high and sometimes lower.

They passed several bodies that had been struck and pushed to the side. Borner knew the lumps had to be human but the peculiar positions of the bodies, as if they had no bones, was haunting. The ones in black leather presented as if the bodies had exploded from the inside and the jackets were hard pressed to hold in the viscera. His breath caught in his throat as he imagined this was just a small replication of Andamathea’s fall. There were a few hundred Urutu, though, and the town was not burning with flaming balls of exploding death. The Void called, reminding him that all the actors had been set in motion, leaving no need for him to continue. He could disappear, assumed to be lost in the chaos of the frothing mob. Had not one ending or another already been immutably cast?

At least Andamathea’s city guard knew they were fighting for the lives of their people, standing in the way of violent death. Gemma was lacking that visceral moral certitude; its leaders were culpable for every crime imaginable. Dead Urutu soldiers gave Borner cold comfort in the aftermath of the fury of Gemma’s people betrayed. One observation resonated: he could walk among the mob untouched. Pushing the Void’s sweet call to the side, Borner prepared himself for the next battle. Nothing was determined amid the chaos despite the look of inevitability. Everything could fail and anything could succeed.

Both men trudged onward without comment. They turned the corner, halting before the scene of two piles of bodies on either side of the collapsed gates. Urutu had made a stand before the ornate, gated doors fitted into the palace wall. With curiosity Borner’s scanned the bodies for sword wounds or stave blows, but he stopped himself as soon as he started, although not soon enough. Bodies, both citizen and priest-soldier, were so broken and crushed that he could only imagine the overwhelming surge of humanity that threw themselves into the rear guard. He sighed at the gruesome sight before trampling over the fallen gates. Already the front gardens were thick with townsfolk come for vengeance.

His task was to make his way to the far side of the palace gardens and find the servant entrance where the palace gates met the outside retaining wall. The gardens were teeming with men, women and children who were still streaming through the unchallenged front carriage gates. People, holding torches high, were yelling for the king’s head. The entire carriageway and the gardens were seething with chanting hordes intent on heading towards the courtyard before the palace. Thousands upon thousands of bodies surrounded Borner as he stepped further into the front garden. He looked towards the street entrance where carriages and horse men would have entered at other times with patrolling Urutu above on the walls. The walls appeared empty, but the entrance was still a flowing river of angry people with torches and staves. Children charged through the gates with the adults in tow, showing an eagerness that left Borner ill at ease.

The broad paths heading towards the front doors were impassible if one wanted to reach the palace. Ambitious onlookers were climbing the short trees for a better view. Cutting across, especially if he used his staff like a conductor counting out a music score, was easier than trying to wind through the crowds. Vendors were already setting up waist-high stands on one pole or holding out trays with straps around their shoulders, selling griddle cakes and jerky.

From a perch on a large rock in the middle, Borner could see that the stout doors of the palace were holding and probably would until someone organized a battering ram. The more determined young men were climbing the cut stone facade, trying to gain access to a balcony or a window. One lanky lad made it to a second story window, only to have the window fly open and a mallet appear. Down he went, and the window closed.

Kanner mentioned a few choice stones would take care of any glass barriers. Borner gave him a look of glaring eyes as if to remind his friend not to give the mob more ideas. The goal was to overthrow the king while keeping the infrastructure intact. The Thieves Guild hoped to subdue Urutu before the commoners forced down the front doors and charged into the building. More to the point, mobs running through the palace would put everyone in danger by the simple fact that mobs do not discriminate between ally and foe. Everyone was simply in the way of a bloodthirsty frenzy.

A chant from his oracle began to rise from the front of the building, the call to purge the House on the Hill. Standing with the crowd in the carriageway, the words sounded ominous. Borner felt a prick of dread as he witnessed the second or third iteration of his words and their probable slaughter-filled consequences.

Using his staff, Borner pushed and shoved his way crosswise through the crowd. No one seemed to recognize him or his staff as he threaded his way across the manicured lawns. While he expected someone to start a bonfire soon, the only light was from the wildly flickering torches that people were holding.

Even in the chilly night of autumn, the bodies surrounding Borner were sweating. A fever was taking hold of them that he feared would only be quenched with violence and blood. Although the attack on the temple of Urutu had been violent, the violence had been brutally short and confined. There were many more citizens who had been denied their vengeance of bloody flesh. Here on the palace grounds, they found plenty of room to vent their murderous expectations.

Borner looked up as he changed direction toward the far corner of the palace. A gang had wrapped several ropes around a pillar of the grand facade. He could not fathom what they hoped to accomplish other than marring a beautiful embellishment of architecture, but mobs had a logic all their own. He pushed forward.

At the corner of the palace, where the outer containment wall was closest to the building, an ornate cast metal fence barred the gap. The vertical bars were laced with images of flowers and sprigs, all of them with sharp petals or thorns, a functional beauty. Borner and Kanner both knew that the fence had a gate with an elaborate mechanism that could only be operated from the other side. If Timmaus and his crew had been successful in their first objectives, then the gate would open for the two of them. If complications arose at this gate, Borner was already trying to figure out how to conjure up a battering ram as a Plan B.

They found the gate, which had extra-long spikes coming out horizontally at knee and eye level. Borner knocked on the metal three times, paused, and knocked another four times.

“About damn time,” someone on the other side mumbled. The gate opened quietly and the two slipped through without comment from bystanders. The near area was lacking the torches found in the middle of the fray.

The face was vaguely familiar, but Borner could not attach a name to it. He made a brief motion with the top of his staff and their guide took off at a brisk pace. Whatever guards had been in place watching the flank of the palace had been dispatched. The area was in darkness, yet their guide seemed to have little trouble winding them through the garden paths.

They came to a wide path that was edged with brick. Between the two lines of brick was a broad expanse of packed clay. If light had not been spilling from an open doorway to their left, Borner still would not have guessed that they had found the servant’s entrance to the House. As they approached the doorway, he was saddened by how plain and simple the entrance was. He had assumed that every entry would proclaim the majesty of the House.

“Just like an accursed temple,” he muttered aloud.

Kanner chuckled at the remark. “Did you expect the cult of the king to be any better than the cult of the sun god, or the ocean god, or the war god? Who is the naive one now?”

“Cocky bastard,” Borner said, happy to fling back a barb that had hit close to home.

The smell was a bit ripe in the first room. All the garbage from the kitchens was gathered here to be shuffled down the path for disposal off the property. Flies buzzed, still feasting on the rotting piles that looked altogether unhealthy in the dim yellow lamplight. Borner was tempted to thrust his nose into the crook of his elbow to keep the stench at bay, but he was not willing to show weakness in front of these people.

The room and its piles were a sad testament of the state of the monarchy in Gemma as far as Borner was concerned. A preventable source of corruption and vermin blight was growing inside the palace itself. The servants who used this entrance knew their place in the world of the king, which was alongside the rubbish. What a simple tool the room provided the Thieves Guild to exploit. Turning a few servants had probably not been much of a challenge, Borner considered as they waited for an “all clear” from ahead.

The signal came, and they went left, turning quickly to climb narrow stairs that squeaked under their feet. At the first landing there was a discussion of some sort that excluded Borner and Kanner. Borner was impatient because he could see the layout in his head. The ground floor where they entered was only found in the back of the building. The first floor housed the public throne room, which was two stories, and the civil service sections of the government; the floor was not the place of kings, only their minions. The second floor was the servant space and the great kitchens, and the third floor was the private family apartments, a private throne room, and suites for other dignitaries.

For the sake of security, the third floor had only two entrances, at either corner of the rear of the massive building. That security came at the price of the servants having to haul everything up different flights of stairs, and through long corridors and short hallways. Both Timmaus and Borner hoped to catch the sitting royal on the first floor rather than having to brave the time-consuming chase through the twists and turns, and probable ambushes leading to and on the upper floor. If events inside the palace moved slowly, then screaming mobs breaking into the halls would obviate any previous planning. They had to work fast before Borner’s oracle became the de facto weapon in the palace.

He rapped their guide on the shoulder and shook his head. Using his staff, he indicated they were continuing upwards whether or not the guide was going to lead. Borner knew that the next stairway was to the left and on the left side of the second hallway on the right. Oil lamps were spaced evenly down the corridor. He walked on, ignoring their guide with deliberation.

Timmaus was still the Master of Lies and Borner had no hesitancy believing that the plan within the plan meant leaving the prophet out of the fray. Borner was not a man of violence, but he was not a man who avoided it when the circumstances dictated. The job was only half finished and a dangerous man, this Lord Reghisis, master of Urutu, was running around these accursed corridors.

Someone tugged at his sleeve. Borner drew the ugliest, most annoyed face he could muster and turned to face his interlocutor. Rather than Kanner or his guide, he looked square in the face of the thief, Dal, who had her own glare of annoyance.

“Wha?” Borner said. “Are you not supposed to be at Salomet’s side?”

“Bodyguards and lovers together make terrible mistakes,” Dal said. “Dura is under another’s care. You are my problem, again. You’re a pain in the ass and you’re already heading for the wrong staircase. Pretty doll house and all, your source has an unreliable memory for her own damned house. They are trying to make a last stand in the private receiving room in back on the third level.”

“Dura?” Borner asked. “She is adopting this affectation?”

“If she prevails this night, she will pair it with her given name as a commemoration of this turning point in her life,” Dal said. “Follow me, prophet, and try not to get lost this time.”

Borner turned back and walked past the original staircase he ascended and continued the other way. “Where are the dead bodies?”

“Most of the staff fled by midday,” Dal said. “When the stampede up Crazy Avenue started, half of the city made for the gates, which had been conveniently shut and locked, by the way. The smart ones are out front watching the circus, hoisting a mug and cheering their fellows on.”

A heavy thud rang through the building. “I believe they found a battering ram,” Kanner said. “Best we save our breath and hurry.”

They stepped into a new section of the building and had to dodge through several short hallways that wrapped themselves around internal columns of the building that led from the basement to the roof. They finally stood at the foot of a staircase leading upwards but the sound of stomping boots above them gave them pause.

Everyone drew their blade or, as Borner preferred, prepared to strike with his juntu staff. As swiftly as they could while remaining quiet, the small group climbed the stairs and emerged into chaos. Men with different sorts of livery, with swords drawn, were running through the hallway in every direction possible.